This month's Rugby World Cup is expected to cost UK
business millions in lost productivity as staff use corporate
systems to keep track of the tournament while in work.
Web content and e-mail security firm Marshal estimates the cost
of the tournament to business could by as much as £461m based on
the UK's average hourly wage of £14.42 an hour.
As the England team launch their campaign to defend their World
Cup title, it is expected that 10% of employed Britons will spend
half an hour of each working day watching coverage of matches or
browsing the web for updates on scores.
Marshal said productivity will be impacted as employees check
the web during working hours for details on matches from live
webcasts and audio feeds, pod casts and web logs. IT services will
also be compromised as they download videos and interactive
scoreboards, eating up valuable bandwidth and opening up the
organisation to potential malicious threats.
Michael Clifford, Marshal's VP for EMEA, said, "Employers need
to set and enforce policies on acceptable use of the web. Companies
can control productivity and bandwidth consumption issues by
implementing policies that limit internet access to certain sites
to lunch time, and before and after working hours."